Putting Goalies on the Spot

Last week I dug into the offensive end of NHL shootouts, so now we need to give the goaltenders their due. As we consider goaltender success during the shootout, a significant aspect to contend with is the quantity of Missed Shots (roughly one out of eight shootout attempts misses the net entirely). Within the table below, I'm including them in a "Stop Pct.", since by definition, Missed Shots aren't included in a goaltender's regular save percentage. When it comes to the shootout, however, I'm inclined to give the netminder some credit for forcing the shooter into an untenable option. So let's get to the results, including the 2005-06 season, and this year up through the games of February 4:

Just as in the offensive analysis, we see a somewhat unexpected bunch of names here. None of the current Top 10 leaders in Save Percentage show up in this leaderboard.

And just as we broke down our shooters by nationality, let's take a look at the goaltending:

Stop Pct. by Country

Goaltender

SO Attempts

SO Goals

Saves

Missed

Stop Pct.

Sweden

116

21

73

22

.819

Switzerland

61

18

31

12

.705

USA

279

84

165

30

.699

Canada

832

277

439

116

.667

Russia

44

16

24

4

.636

Czech Rep.

62

23

29

10

.629

South Africa

58

22

27

9

.621

Finland

186

74

90

22

.602

Slovakia

30

15

11

4

.500

Note: Minimum 25 SO attempts faced.

If you recall from last week's look at the shooters, the Finns were well out ahead of the rest of the pack. In goal, however, it's an entirely different story (and I'd bet they're not too happy about seeing the Swedes way up at the top). Perhaps the reason those Finnish shooters are performing so well is that they've got so much confidence after competing against lousy Finnish goaltenders? Hey, it's a theory...

Now here's where things get real interesting. Much as in baseball, where managers often pinch-hit to obtain the proper lefty/righty matchup between batter and pitcher, a detailed analysis here may suggest that NHL coaches should take just such a consideration when selecting snipers for the shootout. The table below shows shootout results based on the handedness of the shooter, versus the catching hand of the goaltender. Among goaltenders, about 90% of this action involves left-handed catching gloves, and among shooters, lefties make up about two-thirds. What the numbers suggest here is that coaches should, in general, select players who shoot with the same hand that the opposing goalie catches with. Against left-handed catchers, lefty shooters have a 9.1% better shooting percentage (37.3 - 28.2), and against right-handed catchers, right-handed shooters boast a 7.8% edge (32.8 - 25.0). Unless you've got one of the elite SO artists like Slava Kozlov, Jussi Jokinen, Paul Kariya, or a handful of others, NHL coaches would be wise to take advantage of this aspect of the matchup issue. As always, feel free to print out these results, and take them with you to the rink so you can yell them to the coach during crunch time. I'm sure he'll thank you!

Lefty/Righty SO Matchup Matrix

Matchup

SO Attempts

SO Goals

Shoot Pct.

L Shoot/L Goalie

971

362

37.3%

L Shoot/R Goalie

108

27

25.0%

R Shoot/L Goalie

577

163

28.2%

R Shoot/R Goalie

58

19

32.8%

Last, but not least... well, actually last and least, we present our list of the worst goaltending performers in the shootout. When you see these guys in the opposing net, feel free to chalk up that extra point in the standings:

Bottom 10 SO Goalies by Stop Pct.

Goaltender

SO Attempts

SO Goals

Saves

Missed

Stop Pct.

Peter Budaj, COL

30

15

11

4

.500

Mikka Kiprusoff, CGY

33

16

11

6

.515

Dwayne Roloson, EDM

32

15

12

5

.531

Curtis Sanford, STL

27

12

13

2

.556

Marc-Andre Fleury, PIT

25

11

14

0

.560

Alexander Auld, FLA

30

13

13

4

.567

Dominik Hasek, DET

27

11

10

6

.593

Ed Belfour, FLA

34

13

19

2

.618

Olaf Kolzig, WSH

58

22

27

9

.621

Nikolai Khabibulin, CHI

37

13

20

4

.649

Note: Minimum 25 SO attempts faced. EDIT: Yikes! Another typo! Hasek faced 27 attempts, not 10 as originally posted. Thanks to Ian for holding my toes to the fire...

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